Insight journal - Technology

Monoclonal antibodies are developed to be very selective in targeting cells. This is why they have come to be an indispensable research tool in cancer treatment being able to specifically target tumor cells.

Cancer monoclonal antibody deals have been a significant area for dealmaking among the biopharma industry in the past decade.

This article intends to spot the trends in cancer monoclonal antibody since 2009 and heals the reader identify the companies most popular in this area of dealmaking.

Cancer monoclonal antibody partnering has seen peaks and troughs in dealmaking activity since 2009.

On average 56 deals were announced since 2009 which is deemed a fairly high number for cancer monoclonal antibody dealmaking activity.

Unsurprisingly, the most frequent stage of development at signing of a cancer monoclonal antibody partnering deal is discovery, followed by preclinical, and then phase I, phase II and phase III, as shown in figure below.

According to the Current Agreements life science deals and alliance database, the primary oncology disease targets for monoclonal antibody partnering include lymphoma, breast, pancreatic, lung, chronic lymphocytic leukemia and solid tumors.

The primary big pharma companies participating in monoclonal antibody partnering in oncology include Pfizer (10), GSK(12) and Amgen(13), all of whom have participated in six or more deals since 2009.

Amgen has consistently been the most active big pharma dealmaker with 13 deals since 2009, partnering with ImmunoGen, Watson, MicroMet, ManteCorp, GSK, Takeda, Oxford Genome Sciences, Illumina and Daiichi Sankyo. An example of a deal term entered by Amgen is as follows:

Amgen - ImmunoGen: Licensing agreement for TAP technology

ImmunoGen announced that Amgen has licensed the exclusive right to use the Company’s maytansinoid TAP technology to develop anticancer therapeutics to a third target, which is undisclosed.

Amgen licensed rights for two other targets in 2009 and has two compounds in clinical testing under those licenses.

The licenses were taken under a 2000 agreement.

For each license, ImmunoGen receives a $1 million upfront payment and is entitled to receive milestone payments potentially totaling $34 million plus royalties on the sales of any resulting products.

Amgen is responsible for the development, manufacturing and marketing of any products resulting from the license.

A useful means of understanding best practice in cancer monoclonal antibody dealmaking is to follow the activities and deal terms used by the most active companies in a certain type of deal.

The following is a list of the most active cancer monoclonal antibody dealmakers since 2009. With only 4 big pharma companies (Amgen, GSK, Pfizer and Abbott) on the list, it is clear that medium sized biotechnology companies are the partners to watch out for in this area.